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The Gods and the Turning Year

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The Gods and the Turning Year

Rodnovers worship a pantheon reconstructed from chronicle notices, folklore, place-names and comparative study. Perun, the thunderer and god of warriors and of oaths, and Veles, associated with cattle, wealth, the underworld and poetry, are the two best attested and are often set in opposition to one another. Svarog is linked to the sky and to smithcraft, Dazhbog to the sun and to giving, Mokosh to the earth, to moisture and to women's work. Above or behind these many groups place Rod, a word meaning kin, birth and generation, understood as the source of life and of the family line. Some treat Rod as a supreme god and read the other deities as its aspects, which makes parts of the movement effectively monistic rather than polytheistic, and this is a live disagreement rather than a settled point.

Worship is held outdoors at a kapishche, an open shrine usually with carved wooden idols, a fire and a place for offerings. Rites involve bread, grain, honey, mead and flowers, sometimes animal sacrifice, and end in a communal meal. Officiants are commonly called volkhvs. Ancestors are honoured at fixed points in the year, drawing on the widespread Slavic custom of commemorative meals for the dead.

The festival year follows agriculture and the sun. Kupala Night at midsummer, with fires, bathing and wreaths, and Koliada at midwinter are the largest. Maslenitsa marks the end of winter with pancakes and the burning of a straw effigy. These survived in folk custom under Christianity and were reclaimed rather than invented, which makes them the best-grounded element of the whole practice.

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